The early learning center has a very open door policy when it comes to parents being a part of the classroom. I'm grateful. Understanding what Nea's experiences are at school, helps me immensely at home. When I contacted the therapist, she was more than happy to have me come and watch Nea's session.
Nea receives services of 60 minutes a week. 30 minutes of that are met in small group activities with other students. Remember, the social aspect of speech is Nea's focus now and group work is really important. The other 30 minutes are divided into two 15 minute sessions done on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This is a 1:2 ratio with the speech therapist, Nea and another student. Again, the focus of sharing, turn taking and vocalizing requests are best accomplished with a peer.
Thursdays session was held on the floor in a corner of the library. The teacher gathered Nea and her student peer and ushered them to the area. The area is "walled off" with chairs and furniture but kids are naturally curious and many kept moving in and out of the area. There is another class (besides Nea's class) that is in the library at the same time. Yes it's loud. The music area is right next to the "quiet corner" so drum playing, cymbal crashing and singing were happening the entire time. Lots of laughter and fun from the other children in the room and certainly the energy was HIGH!
The whole thing was distracting to me, I can't imagine how it was for her! She was hyped up, there's no doubt. She wouldn't sit on the rug on the floor, she grabbed at objects, she was fixated on the dinosaur that was in a toy-pack behind the therapist and she would not respond to any conversation.
It was dreadful. It was really, horribly awful.
Both the teacher and the therapist discussed with me before and after that the area was not really conducive to therapy sessions. However, that's the only area they had and they had to make it work. It's far to early for me to go into some issue "both guns a blazing" but I had to figure out how to help or Nea's Thursday speech sessions were going to be worthless.
In fairness to Thursday being so awful, I requested to go to a Tuesday session. The speech therapist was happy to have me and I went back to the school 5 days later. This time she went to the classroom, retrieved Nea as well as the other student and brought them to the speech classroom.
Holy smokes, a TOTALLY different environment.
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| Bulletin board in speech room |
First, the cabinets are closed, so there are not super fun toys to taunt Nea. Distractions were minimal if at all. The speech classroom is divided in half, but there is a wall divider that works very well. Nea was happy to sit in the chair. Chairs work best for her activite little body because sitting on an open floor does not provide good sensory feedback for her butt. She needs boundaries, and firm ones at that.
The session went very smoothly. Nea and her peer played a word matching game, they shared, they took turns, they had to talk about the game. The speech therapist provided input if the girls were just echoing or not saying words correctly. She wouldn't let either of them get by with nodding answers....they had to say the word. I have to say it was really cool to watch Nea interact so closely with a kiddo her age.
As it turns out, I didn't need to help anyone. The speech therapist and the teacher made other arrangements so that Thursdays sessions didn't take place in the busy, noisy library. Perfect!
So what does this all mean? Has there been a successful transition from private speech therapy to school speech therapy?
Private speech therapy was our beginning. In fact, if you remember, it was the speech therapist that strongly encouraged us to get her to a developmental pediatrician due to the autism signs she was observing. For the past year she worked on helping Nea understand that communication has a purpose. She helped her understand how to make requests, she taught me how to create communication tools, she helped us to understand Nea's needs and motivations with speech, she insisted on eye contact routinely, and on and on. Essentially she laid the foundation (and a damn strong one) for Nea to build upon. When she told me, "I can't help her anymore" I wanted to fall out of my chair. Nea's foundation was ready, she was more than ready actually....she needed to move on to the practical reasons that we all use communication. Conversation, social interactions, expression of emotion, understanding someone else, getting your needs met...etc.
Nea has been in school 4 weeks, and here are some major things that I've noticed....
Instead of lining up toys and animals (which she still gets great joy from), they now introduce each other. "Hi Thomas, what's your name? I'm Mia" (she still has trouble with the N sound).
Pretend play has increased dramatically with animals talking to each other "Tiger, it's okay, don't be scared, Mama is here." "Elephant do you want to play?" "Giraffe, do you want to ride the train?" She's making a conscious move from inward play (watching the wheels go back and forth) to pretend play with appropriate use of the toy. It's been nothing but amazing to watch.
And then there is books.
We have lots of books around our house and Nea never has had an interest in them. She may look at them once when she saw it, but after that it landed in a pile and she never cared. Try as I might to pull one out for her and I to read together....she simply wanted no part of it. There was nothing pleasurable about it for her. I know that reading to your child helps to increase her language and vocabulary, but it just wasn't working for us. And of course, as all Mom's do, I felt horribly guilty. Maybe I wasn't trying hard enough. Maybe I wasn't presenting it well. Maybe I didn't know how.
But school has changed that. Somehow, someway they have introduced books to her in a way that excites her. She's in the library every Tuesday, she brings a new book home, she brings a book to me routinely now to sit with her and read. I may not get to read every word on the page before she turns the page, but we certainly get the gist of the story with my ad-libbing along the way (thank you Drama club).
I rearranged Nea's room to look more like how her classroom is organized. There's the quiet corner where her tent is set up, there's the jumper for her to burn off some energy, and now....there's a bookshelf for her books. No longer do they sit in a pile in a carton. Now they are displayed so she can see every one and choose as she wants.
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| Nea's Jumper |
Yesterday I heard this from Nea's room.....
"Meow" (from Nikki, our cat)
"Oh! Hi kitty! Come in! Sit down. Sit down, kitty. SIT DOWN KITTY! Want to read storybook? I read storybook to you."
And when I peeked in, there was Nea on the floor, book open, talking and "reading"
....and the sweetest cat I've ever known, listening intently.
Hooray! You know I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes thinking about Nea finally connecting with books! How precious, the idea of her reading with the cat! Love it!
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